


do i deserve such a break?

by chewsdaychillin



Series: upton house softness [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Bittersweet, But mostly sweet, Fluff, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, Upton House (The Magnus Archives), canon typical cuddling and holding the one you love close, safehouse 2.0 babey, waking up together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:53:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26729986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chewsdaychillin/pseuds/chewsdaychillin
Summary: The tangle is all legs this morning. Blinking through the soft focus of shapes without his glasses, Martin finds Jon looking at him from the closest end of the opposite pillow, his hands curled adorably under his chin.'Morning,' he says gently.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Series: upton house softness [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1998130
Comments: 33
Kudos: 239





	do i deserve such a break?

**Author's Note:**

> i know we've had so many of these and it's patreon release in 3 hours but i went ballistic in the notes app over the softness of the fact they finally get one of these moments.....
> 
> and yes. maybe i have got into the whole lowercase lyrics titles... jus this once bc with my eyes wide open im dreaming is too much of a jm song to be ignored.

When Martin wakes up he is very much instantly aware that he's awake. Normally there is some drifting and rolling over and thoughts that become dreamlike and then sensible again. He'd managed to mostly train himself out of tossing and turning as a child, but in that half-sleep of early morning he usually flips a couple of times before he sways, like a feather falling, into actual waking, and discovers what shaped tangle he and Jon have made this morning. 

This morning he knows he is awake, because the sleep he has been pulled from was so intensely heavy, that the contrast with the light he's now blinking through is as clear cut as... Well as night and day. The tangle is all legs this morning. He can feel an ankle against his shin, toes against his ankle, a knee under his thigh. Blinking through the soft focus of shapes without his glasses, Martin finds Jon looking at him from the closest end of the opposite pillow, his hands curled adorably under his chin. 

'Morning,' he says gently. He doesn't sound tired today, voice free of any rasp. 

Danger fails to kick in as Martin takes in his halo of cowlicked-sootlicked-bloodlicked hair on the ivory pillow. His little closed mouth smile, and the soft trenches in his forehead he gets when his eyebrows relax out of their frown. 

'Morning, sweetheart,' Martin murmurs back, feeling himself smile. 

Then he yawns, groans out a stretch as he usually does in the morning. His back and shoulders ache in the best way as he uncurls them, flopping onto his back. His head is very pleasantly foggy as he keeps it lolling sideways, looking always at the slightly blurry outline of his love. 

'Feel like I slept for a week.’ 

Jon takes his stretching as an invitation to crawl halfway onto his chest and use that as a pillow instead. 'We very possibly did,’ he agrees, sounding amused. 

Martin strokes his hair, fumbles for his glasses with his other hand. They’ve been folded neatly on the bedside table. The last thing he remembers is feeling sleep take him bodily as a wave and his head flopping onto Jon’s shoulder, but he thinks that was downstairs. The floor had been marbled, he remembers. Black and white like a giant chess board but diagonal.

He unfolds his suspiciously unharmed glasses and looks around as well as he can. The wallpaper is a cool green, but the sunlight streaming in in ribbons through the big Georgian windows is warm as anything. It could be summer. Dust swirls and practically glitters in the light. The sheets are crisp white even after they've slept that long in all their end or the world dirt. It could be summer in Oxford in a big country house. Like a fancy hotel. A honeymoon, Martin catches himself thinking. Another honeymoon. He looks back down at Jon pressed into his chest and meets that gentle smile again. This can't be allowed. 

'Is this… Is this real? this isn't a trap?' 

Jon just hums in pleased ignorance. He snuggles down and smoothes his hand over the sleep-creases in Martin’s grimey T-shirt, ignoring the question. 'I don't know,' he says happily. 

‘I know you don't  _ Know _ ,’ Martin tuts, ‘but what do you think? I mean…’ he sighs. ‘You know I hate being the one to say it, but should we be... I don’t know, leaving? Finding out what's going on?’ 

There’s a moment where Jon’s hand stills then and, as much as it had to be said, Martin mourns the moment he’s pushed to the edge of being a little bit ruined. Then Jon rolls onto one elbow and comes up to kiss him. Not overly gentle for first thing in the morning either - pressing his closed mouth with intent before he starts another proper kiss. He tastes like sleep and like he hasn’t drunk enough in weeks, which neither of them have. Really they both smell appalling and the water they’ve been splashing to wash has done nothing to get the gritty texture out of an unspecified length of time’s stubble.

Still Martin hums without thinking, and his hand instinctively finds the curve at the back of Jon’s neck and holds it. His thumb stroking the greasy wispy bits at Jon’s nape as he kisses him back. Lazily like they aren’t in the eye of the storm. Like they are in a four-poster bed.

When Jon finally pulls away a fraction, with a final kiss to his cheek, Martin’s mouth is still half open and sleepily following him. Jon breathes an amused sound and rolls back onto the pillow. He kisses Martin’s shoulder and turns onto it to follow him. He catches one more kiss, remaking the tangles from first thing. He slides his hand round Jon’s waist and for once doesn’t instantly notice scars and bumps and cuts from whatever the latest horror is. Just where his hand naturally rests. Then they pull back and he just looks. 

A bird is cooing, and yes Jon’s still got grime across his face but he’s a bit pinker now across his cheeks. He looks beautiful. The fact of which still probably has Martin’s mouth a bit slack. He’s going to say something, probably just that  _ \- you look beautiful -  _ but then Jon is tracing his lips and chin with one finger innocently. 

‘Wish I could do that till you'd stop worrying,’ he says, picking, as he sometimes does, a teasing syntax though it’s always genuine. 

Ah yes. The worrying. The kissing had almost worked there. But, sadly, Martin reminds himself reminds them both with resigned geniality that - ‘one of us has to.’ 

'No,' Jon says firmly, 'No one of us doesn't. Just for once, for a moment.' 

To perfunctuate this moment they're having for once, he takes Martin’s glasses off again. Like he used to before they’d cuddle in to sleep. As much as Martin misses seeing every bit of him beautiful and clear, he lets them go. Without them the fuzziness feels untouchable and restful. But he’s still worrying. 

Jon sighs. He rests his palm heavily on Martin's cheek and strokes his thumb slowly through his eyebrow. The gentle tug of it across Martin's eyelid is grounding, soothing. He doesn't sound petty or prevailing when he reminds Martin that - 

'You were the one always wanting to have that. A moment.' 

He was. He always was but it's never that easy to let yourself have it. Talking became the aim, often. If we don't push on then we should at least address... all of it. Catch up together. How we’re feeling. Which then inevitably is something at a bit not good. They haven't had just a sit down, lie down, forget all this and don't be afraid moment in a long time. They tend not to last long anyway, and Martin has gotten used to snatching them whilst knowing always that they won't be what he wants to let them have. He needs breaks, but he's a fixer and there's never a time where things don't need fixing here. Jon needs breaks but when has that ever stopped him. Plus talking is still effort for him and getting him to talk is like… maybe not blood from a stone anymore but the stars have to align right with the tides and all sorts. So actually the moments have been... Well, very momentary. Not that they’re not nice. They're havens, and Martin wouldn't trade them for anything. The little bits of gossip and games and arguments with stakes that won't hurt them. 

This feels like something entirely else. Held between Jon's hand and eiderdown. 

‘Okay,’ he breathes. ‘Ten more minutes.’

He pulls the curtain behind him so his back isn't exposed - to Annabelle or the draft. Jon shuffles over to his pillow, so their breathing mingles and their stomachs are flush in the warm bubble under the duvet. It's remarkably cosy in a four-poster like this. They should invite themselves into old country houses more often. Martin drifts off again with half-baked wonderings about how much the National Trust would charge them for unlimited naps, how much has changed since Jon was slipping away from exasperated teachers on a school trip here, and how much it would spurn the old Tory gentry to see him and his boyfriend kissing in their master bedroom. 

Then it’s just breathing halfway heavy enough to be snoring for a while, muffled by the thick down and the heavy fabric over their heads and half pulled around the bed. Any creaky floorboards or bustle from the rest of the house is banished from their insular bed. Martin feels the air move through his lashes before he realises Jon's said something. 

'Hmm?' 

‘I said you were in my dream.’ 

Martin opens his eyes then. ‘Oh.’ 

This is not normally a good thing. Jon doesn't usually tell him in fact, because it’s that not good, but sometimes in the Highlands, or in those fitful days after it all went wrong, he would wake up especially troubled and admit, after much badgering, that the eye had chosen someone conveniently nearby for the nightmares this time. Martin doesn't like to think what he might have been experiencing in Jon’s subconscious, so he chooses instead to be upset by the way Jon carries it - sad and shaken and guilty as sin, making dinner like he's making up for something. It makes Martin feel bad for ever being afraid of anything. 

‘Sorry..?’ he tries 

But Jon is shaking his head. 'No, no, you were happy. It was normal.’ he doesn’t look at all guilty. In fact the smile is audible in every word. ‘It was just a normal weird dream, and you were smiling. I don't remember why but- huh,' he beams, eyes alight wonderment and a tentative joy. 'I don't remember!' 

That look on him is completely infectious. Martin feels like his heart is melting with sympathetic happiness as he takes the hand that’s still on his cheek and kisses it. ‘A normal dream that you don't remember,’ he repeats, threading their fingers together and squeezing. ‘When's the last time that happened?’

He hadn’t really meant it literally but Jon’s eyes narrow again as he thinks. ‘God, must be... I mean, a year if not… I don’t know about time here but probably more.’

What is there really to say to that? To pain like that. Martin can only sigh and open his arms. ‘Aw love,’ he says as softly as he can, ‘come here.’ 

Jon hums and nestles down into Martin’s chest, his hair just poking out of the duvet. He slides his warm arms as tight as they can possibly go and presses a kiss wherever it lands. ‘I'm glad we stopped,’ he murmurs, ‘whatever they're planning.’

‘Hmmm.’

‘I know you don't agree.’

Martin sighs again and pushes the duvet down a bit, strokes Jon’s hair back so they can see each other. ‘I'm not disagreeing, I- you know I missed this as much as you. I’d trade...' 

He searches. They both know he can't say  _ anything _ , can't say  _ the world _ because that wouldn't be true. If it was then they would be staying. And they'd both be selfish. Which they won't be and they aren't. 

'Most things,’ Martin settles on, ‘to stay here with you forever.' The  _ but we can't _ hangs in the air. For once he elects not to say it and instead pushes on with relentless optimism. ‘I'm very much enjoying getting to lie down for once.’ Then he sighs, knowing how cheery that sounded. He doesn't feel cheery, he just feels relieved. He looks down again at Jon’s eyes closed against his collarbone and really does mean most things. ‘And you look peaceful.’

He means it half as a compliment of course, but Jon only murmurs assent and takes it it's an observation. 'I feel so human here,’ he says

‘You always were-’ Martin starts to remind him but he's cut off with amused impatience as usual. 

‘Yes, yes, but it's so... It's so quiet.’ 

Martin listens. Is it? If he pulls back the curtain a bit and pays attention the white noises of nature that have so recently become alien to them in their normal ways are clear as a bell. Outside a brook is running and there's a breeze through the willows. Flies and bees are humming and there are... starlings, magpies, wrens and larks and a wood pigeon cooing repetitively like they do in London. He crinkles his nose in argument. 

'The birds are making a racket-' 

Jon makes that tutting noise and smiles like he does now when Martins said something stupid in an endearing way. (His words) 

'In my mind's eye, Horatio', he quotes with a chuckle. It’s nice to hear him joke about it all, even if he’s petty in choosing theatre. 

‘Ohhhh.’

‘I mean it's quiet. I can't  _ See _ anything,’ Jon explains. ‘I know you're worried but I don't  _ Know _ it... I can't feel it.’ he sighs, turning his head into his shoulder to look up. His cheek is warm against Martin’s chest. It’s a miracle he can’t feel the worry, or the aching happiness. Martin breathes out slowly, wanting nothing more than to keep him in this fear-free bubble. ‘It's been even longer since I've had that,’ he whispers. 

There are a great deal more inventive words Martin could shower down on him to make him know how much he deserves it. The quiet. A rest. Comfort. This. In the end he chooses the simplest. 

‘I love you,’ he whispers, dropping a kiss on Jon’s forehead.

‘I love you too,’ Jon promises. 

They drift back off again without a care for the answers outside their bed. No one rolls away. The slight discomfort of the tangle of legs stays wound, intact and safe. 

**Author's Note:**

> ty for reading uwu x leave a commenté perhaps? 
> 
> im currently taking commissions ! u can find my post w prices n details [here](https://babyyodablackwood.tumblr.com/post/630528010471211008/ao3-fic-commissions-kofi-i-am-offering-proof) as well as a link to my ko-fi <3 
> 
> prayer circle for this ep to begin w duvet rustling sfx


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